View full sizeAP photoNo offense, Marian, you're a nice guy and great player, but that's one ugly jersey.

Maybe it's just the Red Wings fan in me, but watching the knuckle-dragging Flyers play against the young, brash Hawks, from game one on, was like pulling teeth. Growing up in the Chuck Norris Division days, watching the Chelios-led Hawks beat and beat up on the Red Wings yielded no sympathy from me when the Hawks played in front of a third-full rink, and I certainly have no positive feelings toward Chris Pronger, so the series was lose-lose from my subjective standpoint. After watching the Wings win four Stanley Cups over the course of twelve seasons, every time that another team lifts that silver mug, it feels like someone else is taking something that should belong to your team, and that's a very empty feeling.

I was happy to see Scotty Bowman lift the Cup with his son, Stan, but I really couldn't care less about Marian Hossa finally winning the Stanley Cup on his third try. Barring any ill will toward him, his career choices have underlined a mercenary's mentality, so...

After Jonathan Toews accepted the Stanley Cup from Gary Bettman, gushing like a proud papa (almost as happily as he did when the Penguins won the Cup last year) about the Hawks' renaissance, and after taking a lap, Toews gave the Cup to Hossa. He said this to the Globe and Mail's Eric Duhatschek:

June 10, Globe and Mail: “Definitely, it’s a huge relief,” said Hossa. “I was so happy going to
the finals, but at the same time, a little bit nervous. It’s a funny
thing. A couple of reporters came up to me and said, ‘you’re a lucky
charm because every team you play for, you go to the finals.’ Then I
have a couple of others who say, there is a Hossa hex. So I don’t know
what to think, but I’m so glad this is over and I’m now on the winning
side.” Right now, I’m going to enjoy it....

“You go to the finals two years in a row and you have nothing to show
for it and you get asked that question all year, I thought he was a
great player all night. He was a threat. He was dangerous. He showed
tonight that he was going to make sure he’s winning the Cup.”

Hossa also spoke to the CBC, the AP, and NHL.com (among other sources) about winning the Cup on his third try, but...As someone who doesn't pretend to feel happy about a team whose fans chant, "Red Wings suck" lifting the Cup, I can only offer my congratulations to Hossa, Tomas Kopecky, Scotty Bowman, and the Blackhawks on a well-deserved and earned Cup championship, hope they enjoy their time with the Cup...

And hope that next season, the Wings wrest the Cup back, and knock the Hawks off along the way.